Is American Apparel Promoting Porn?

A national clothing chain has come under fire from a group of Christian college students for an advertising campaign featuring female models wearing see-through shirts and underwear.

“It’s disgusting,” said Hanna Whyte, a student at Calvin College. She’s talking about what she calls provocative advertising by American Apparel. The ads, she said, show topless women with bare bottoms.

So she joined forces with fellow Calvin College student Abbie Belford to launch a Facebook protest page. “It’s almost pornographic,” Belford told WZZM.

“We want to let them know that no, we are youth, but we do have morals, we have standards,” Whyte told the television station. “This just crosses the line.”

The college actually purchased t-shirts from American Apparel last year. However, administrators said they will support the student-led boycott and will likely buy shirts from another company next year.

“We appreciate the sincerity of the views expressed by these students. Our advertisements and photographs are occasionally controversial — we feel that these images are evocative because they feature real people instead of professional models done up with makeup artists or Photoshop. American Apparel’s website is filled with photos of friends, employees and fans of the company who volunteered or even collaborated by submitting self-portraits.

Our advertisements are just one part of what we do. American Apparel is the largest garment manufacturer in North America. The same factory where our photo shoots take place produces more than one million Sweatshop Free garments every week. We hope that the students in Grand Rapids who don’t appreciate our imagery can still enjoy our basic clothing.”